In reading "A Worn Path," the reader is filled with complete disbelief that Old Phoenix is not only able to complete her journey but does so periodically and completely alone. She first makes her way though pinewoods, shooing away any rustling of animals that she hears within the shrubbery. When she comes to a hilly area, she feels as though she has "chains on her feet" because the climb is so exhausting. At the bottom of the hill, she catches her dress on a thorn bush and becomes slightly frustrated and discouraged. She then faces her first real trial, having to cross a creek over a single log. After accomplishing this, she is so tired that she needs momentary rest and even hallucinates a small boy offering her cake. Nonetheless, she presses on. She passes under a barbed-wire fence and through the maze of a cornfield, and soon comes to a ravine where she is menaced by a large black dog. However, a hunter helps her to chase it off, and seems to admire her. Phoenix's greatest and most tragic challenge arises when she is already in town. As she is entering the clinic, her memory completely fails her, and she forgets why she is there. As the clinic workers prod her on, she struggles to recall what it is that she came for. However, once a worker speculates that her grandson might be dead, her memory floods back to her, as if the thought of her grandchild fuels her resolve.
There are many physical challenges that Old Phoenix endures on her path to find medicine for her grandson. Outside of her own infirmity and age, she struggles with various obstacles.
The first thing she faces is a thornbush which snags her outfit, catching her and ripping her clothes a bit in the process. This delays and hinders her on what is already a long and arduous journey for an infirm old lady. After this, she has to travel through a corn field, which is difficult in and of itself, even without the lack of a path—which makes it clearly worse.
Later, Old Phoenix has to descend into a ravine, where she is threatened by a dog. She hits the dog, though she falls into a ditch in the process and is eventually threatened by a hunter. She perseveres in spite of this and continues onward. When she is almost to the clinic, she realizes her shoes have come untied, and she has to have them laced back up by a passing stranger. In the end, she gets the medicine but must once again make the perilous journey back.
The short story "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty tells of an old African American woman named Phoenix Jackson who makes a long trip into town to obtain medicine for her grandson. Years ago he had swallowed some lye, and he needs the medication to soothe his throat. If you start at the beginning and go through the story paragraph by paragraph, you'll find that Phoenix faces numerous obstacles on her journey.
The primary obstacle she carries with her all the time: it's her old and uncooperative body. She has trouble walking, she needs a makeshift cane to help her, and she has trouble with her own shoelaces. She also has difficulty seeing properly.
The first outside physical obstacle she encounters is a thorn bush. It catches on her dress, and she has to pull it off carefully so that her dress doesn't tear. She then has to walk over a log laid across a creek. This frightens her, so she closes her eyes as she walks across. The next obstacle is a barbed wire fence, which she has to get by very carefully.
She has to go through a cornfield that she calls a maze because there is no path. In the midst of the corn she comes across the scarecrow, which she first thinks is a ghost.
When she descends into a ravine, she comes across a black dog, which she hits with her cane. She then falls into a ditch and has trouble getting out. The white hunter that comes along pulls her out, but he becomes the next obstacle by pointing his gun at her, taunting her and telling her to go home.
Phoenix has almost reached the medical clinic when she realizes that her untied shoelaces are an obstacle. She asks a passerby to tie them for her.
Finally, throughout the story, Phoenix's mind is sometimes an obstacle to her. She lapses into daydreams on occasion, and at the clinic for a short time, she forgets why she is there.
Phoenix Jackson faces a number of obstacles in the valley as she travels to the doctor's office to procure the medicine needed by her grandson. Before she even reaches the bottom of the big hill that always seems to want her to stay, her skirts catch in a thorny bush, and it seems as though "before she could pull them free in one place they were caught in another."
Next, Phoenix comes to a creek, and she must walk across a log to reach the other side. She lifts up her skirts, closes her eyes, and walks across. After sitting for a short rest, she has to make her way through a barbwire fence. Phoenix, an old woman, must get down on her hands and knees and crawl like a baby in order to avoid getting her clothes or skin snagged in the barbs. After this, she has to walk through the old cotton fields and a field of dead corn; there is no longer a path for this part, and she refers to it as a maze. As she makes her way from the valley, even more things happen to delay her, but she continues her plodding way forward, letting her feet remember the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment